I guess it's possible if Apple got a hold of pre-release materials on the Essential phone. But a company the size of Apple gets the design ready months, possibly a year, before release. The Essential Phone was officially shown off May 30, 2017 [0], so that's the earliest Apple could have seen the design without getting pre-release renders. The iPhone X was announced on September 12 of that same year. That means that, if Apple were to copy them, they would have to completely pivot their design, change manufacturing plans, get new displays, etc, in just over 3 months. I find that unbelievable personally, especially considering things Apple did to make the display work even better, like eliminating the chin by folding the OLED panel in on itself [1]. I don't believe it's possible that they got that working in 3 months. And I guess it is possible Apple obtained pre-release renders of the Essential, but even if they got it, say, 2 months before Essential's announcement, 5 months is still not a lot of time to pivot a phone's design.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/30/15711170/essential-phone-...

[1] https://www.redmondpie.com/why-most-2018-smartphones-have-ch...